3 Things Chicago Headhunters Don’t Care About Anymore

Recruiting has undergone some serious change in the last several years. Today, Chicago headhunters care less about some of the old standbys of recruiting and are focusing more on skills and qualities that help candidates succeed in challenging positions in today’s dynamic and varied job climate. While this can be startling for HR departments receiving recruited candidates, learning what headhunters no longer care about is a fantastic way to improve hiring practices and find the perfect candidate quicker and easier. Read on to find out more.

3 Things Chicago Headhunters Aren’t Looking For

Luckily, the fact that recruiting has changed doesn’t need to spell failure for job seekers or HR departments issuing job listings. Here are the top three things that Chicago headhunters are no longer looking for, and how HR can adapt to them:

1. Cover letters

Nowadays, Chicago headhunters are less concerned about cover letters than they are about a candidate’s skills, interview performance, and references. While cover letters used to be a good way to separate qualified candidates from unqualified candidates, they’ve become ineffective and time-consuming as job listings have expanded and more candidates have appeared on the market.

Even though this makes sense to most HR departments, some have difficulty adjusting to the cover letter-free hiring process. While the cover letter is helpful for managers getting to know a new candidate, today’s HR departments will need to rely more on the skills of their recruiters and the demonstrated experience of the candidate to decide who is the best fit for the job.

2. Previous work experience

Today, it’s common for Chicago recruiters to bring HR departments candidates from a variety of different backgrounds. For example, a person with a degree in literature may be the perfect content manager while an engineer may work incredibly well in the field of biology. The reason for this is that industries cross over today more than they ever have before.

This is due in large part to the explosion of digital consumerism and the accompanying need for content, high-quality design, smart innovation, and skilled technicians and engineers who understand human behavior just as well as they do technical subjects.

While it may be startling for your HR department to see candidates from seemingly disconnected backgrounds, it’s critical to give it a chance. Cross-industry expertise is a powerful tool, and it’s important for HR departments to understand recruiters’ newfound focus on this.

3. Alma Mater

While boasting a degree from an in-demand university used to be a huge benefit for candidates, today’s Chicago headhunters care less about where a candidate went to school than they do what skills were learned.

With this in mind, HR departments can do well to stop focusing so carefully on where a candidate obtained his or her degree and focus, instead, on transferable skills learned in or out of school. At the end of the day, these things determine a successful candidate far more than prestigious school.

Today’s Hiring Priorities

While the climate of recruiting has changed and some old headhunting standbys have gone out the window, there are still dozens of things that Chicago headhunters look closely for. One of these things is research capability. Both recruiters and HR departments want to see candidates who can navigate the vast and choppy “content sea” to pull relevant, high-quality information. This becomes increasingly more important as access to information continues to explode.

One thing that today’s recruiters pay close attention to is something that often comes as a surprise to HR departments: job-hopping. While today’s workforce (especially younger employees) change jobs more often than virtually any other in history, job-hopping is still something that recruiters tend to be a bit critical of.

While recruiters are happy to see candidates who have worn multiple hats and excelled at a variety of different positions (in a startup environment, for example), they also need to see evidence of employer loyalty to pass candidates on to HR.

Recruiting: A Changing Game

Headhunting has morphed considerably over the last several years, and today’s headhunters are bringing more qualified, more determined candidates into HR departments every day. Because recruiting has changed so drastically, however, these candidates are often a bit startling to said HR departments.

While things like cover letters and the focus on alma mater may have gone out the door, recruiters today are focusing on traits and skills that make the new wave of employees effective and efficient in their new job positions.